oberon

Alexandra, let's see your Balanchine list

Not listed in any particular order... Balanchine: 4 TEMPS, SYMPHONY IN C, SERENADE, TCHAIKOVSKY SUITE #3, and a 25-way tie for #5!!! Robbins: OPUS 19/THE DREAMER; IN G MAJOR; ANTIQUE EPIGRAPHS; GLASS PIECES; EVENINGS WALTZES. Martins: BURLESKE, HALLELUJAH JUNCTION, CONCERTI ARMONICI, FEARFUL SYMMETRIES, BARBER VIOLIN CONCERTO Wheeldon: MORPHESES, POLYPHONIA, LITURGY, MERCURIAL MANOUVRES, SHAMBARDS I think I could live on a desert island for quite a few years with only these works available...and also SWAN LAKE & Kingdom of the Shades.

NYCB today is loaded with beautiful people of both sexes...beautiful, glamourous, striking, sexy, mysterious, cute...you name it, NYCB has it. Ringer, Korbes, Golbin, Beskow, Edge, Weese, Katie Bergstrom, Kristen Sloan, Ellen Bar, Janie Taylor, Alexandra: sorry, Mr. Rockwell, but these girls are knockouts. We have the womanly beauties like Darci & Kyra and we have the sweet young things like Jessica Flynn and Ana Sophia Scheller. We have demure (Borree), we have mystique (Wendy), we have the pretty girl next door (Abi), we have the blondes (Rachel, Pascale, Jenni Tinsley, Elizabeth Walker), we have the striking Rebecca Krohn and the uniquely pretty Sarah Ricard...we have the eyes (Riggins, Wendy, Kyra), the legs (Kowroski and Reichlin), the hair (Darci & Janie & Carla)...we have something for everyone. And, we have Sofiane!! We won't even start with the men because it will require several paragraphs... Who needs Vogue or Men's Fitness? If you want to look at beautiful people, NYCB is the place to be...

It's Week 6 already?

I was also thinking Scheller might be a good partner for de Luz... Bouder and Woetzel have been paired before, for her first Aurora...

After seeing her in LA SONNAMBULA I had this mad craving to see Wendy Whelan dance Giselle...and now, I have another mad craving: to see her as Myrtha! Is there a cure for mad cravings? I hope not...

Saturday matinee 2/5 Usually I don't like "cute" ballets but I always like FANFARE...it's short, and you get to see lots of soloists and corps dancers. Today's performance featured (among others) Reichlin as the Harp, Liang & Tinsley as Clarinets, Rachel R & Jared A as Violas, Ask LaCour as the Double Bass, and three very funny men as Percussion: Amar Ramasar, Sean Suozzi & Tom Gold. Last season I thought Peter's CONCERTO FOR 2 SOLO PIANOS was kind of exciting and gave Ansanelli a good (and quite difficult) role. This time it seemed a bit tepid, despite the presence of three charismatic dancers in the leading roles: Ask La Cour and Amar Ramasar handled all the tricky partnering very well and did their solo bits with assurance. Carla Korbes, whom we haven't seen for a while, looks great and danced beautifully...she has a much softer and more sensual approach to the piece, very different from Alexandra. Last season the ballet seemed kind of edgy, this year the edge was less prominent. STARS & STRIPES woke the audience up...Jennifer Tinsley & Ellen Bar led their regiments with flair, and Tom Gold again delivered the goods while leading the men's group...Sylve is really unlike any NYCB ballerina we have seen (I never saw Hayden...maybe they are similar?)...Sylve is the grand-style prima ballerina and if you like that you will like her. Today she gave a blazing performance and roused Charles Askegard to give one of the best performances I have ever seen from him. They were having fun, and so was the audience. There were a few mishaps during the afternoon and the corps were not always in unison. But by the time STARS & STRIPES was reaching its climax, it hardly mattered.

Perky, It seemed to be a gathering of patrons, not a public forum, so I could not enter. I could hardly hear what she was saying but she was talking about the daily routine of a dancer. Then someone asked her "What is the dancer's relationship to the Company?" to which she replied: "The dancers ARE the Company..." I adore her (and I hate the word "adore" but can't express it any other way)...

Perky, I'm off shortly to see Sylve in STARS & STRIPES - not to mention Carla Korbes, scheduled for CONCERTO FOR 2 SOLO PIANOS. I'll write about my impressions of Sylve, though I am aleady prejudiced in her favor. She is different from our roster of ballerinas, but I don't hold that against her.

Colleen, wait til you hit 60!!!!

I have an old VHS of this movie, now released on DVD....haven't seen the new release but I have always enjoyed the movie, a sort of ballet/soap opera with Anne Bancroft quite convincing as a "mature" ballerina and Shirley MacLaine as her one-time rival, now retired and jealous of Bancroft's successful career. Aside from the famous champagne scene, there are lots of funny, soapy and even moving moments. Leslie Browne (I think it was supposed to be Gelsey's role) is convincing as a slightly air-headed young ballerina and there's quite a bit of Misha dancing. You get many snippets of various ballets, though sometimes the feet are cut off. Then there is the drunken Wili scene...well, if you haven't seen it I don't want to spoil it...and there are a few references to the sexuality of male dancers, not a common topic in the 70s. Danilova, Antoinette Sibley and Hilda Morales are on hand, and there is a gorgeous 1/2 minute bit of Martine van Hamel as Odette...watch the hands, they will mesmerize you.

Stopped by the theatre on my way to the opera...Carla Korbes is listed as replacing Ansanelli in CONCERTO FOR 2 SOLO PIANOS tomorrow (Saturday) matinee. While I was there, the glamourous Pauline Golbin was giving a talk on the lower staircase...she looked absolutely stunning. At the Met I saw a really moving BUTTERFLY...hockeyfan, did we once discuss Cynthia Lawrence? Well, she knocked me out tonight....if you want a good cry, go see her as Cio-Cio-San. Bring a large box of Kleenex.

I do think von Otter has been frittering away her instrument lately...to sing "too small" can be as dangerous as to sing things which are too heavy. I hear the same thing in Dawn Upshaw, and it seems already to have sent Sylvia McNair on the cabaret route. You have to use the whole instrument, no matter what you are singing...you can't cut off the support when doing pop or crossover. Dorothy Kirsten & Eileen Farrell knew the trick.

bobbi, you are in for a long day...but I'm sure it will be rewarding! PELLEAS is a gorgeous opera but I skipped it this year because the last time I heard von Otter she hasn't sounded so good. But Melisande is not vocally taxing...I'd be curious to hear your impressions...and of Bouder in S & S, of course!

Looking at the changes, I'm a bit confused as to who is injured or ill...but anyway, I'm glad you decided to go tonight, Amanda, since I couldn't...please write a review for us when you have the time.

While I agree that NYCB audiences are more sedate than ABT's, I can recall some pretty enthusiastic ovations at NYCB back in the 70s especially...and several evenings when a dancer or couple were called back to the stage more than once after a solo or pas de deux... There have never been "ABT-type" ovations at NYCB...except at farewells...nor do I want them (but then, even at ABT ovations are declining in both duration & volume). But up until about 5 years ago it was routine for the NYCB dancers to be called before the curtain three times. A dud ballet or uninspired performance might only draw two calls. Nowadays, getting two calls is pretty much the max...three calls is very rare. Four calls, which Wendy & Jock recently took for LITURGY, almost unheard-of. I am not saying that applause and curtain calls mean the performance was great, nor that the dancers are working to sop up applause...but it is really the only way we can express our admiration, short of throwing roses to the stage.

You cannot be serious??? Dame Janet mentioned in the same breath as Peter Pears....no way! If you have never heard her BBC performance of Cassandra (yes, Cassandra) in THE TROJANS you have missed one of the most hair-raising operatic incarnations of all time..so contained yet so vivid and harrowing.

Michael, I agree thoroughly with you about the lack of audience reaction these days. I have written elsewhere on Ballet Talk about this phenomenon which seems to have overtaken ballet & opera audiences over the past decade. Great artistry is treated with ho-hum indifference; sometimes there is barely enough applause to get the dancers out before the curtain even once. So many times I have seen extraordinary, moving performances in which the dancers have given their all both technically & emotionally only to receive a polite round of applause as audience members rush to the restrooms or whip out their cell-phones to see who called them during the ballet. It is a sad state of affairs. As Kyra's career reaches towards the twilight, I feel every moment she is onstage is a precious gift to us. The only way we can repay her, or any of the dancers for that matter, is by embracing her with our applause. When the farewell comes, there will be many bows, many flowers, confetti, tears, and people yelling their heads off. In my view, she (and many other dancers) deserve this reaction every night. It seems only the most extroverted or showy pieces/dancers can evoke waves of applause. Musicality, humility and grace seem no longer to be of interest to the public in general. In closing, I would not disparage Sylve...she is a totally different animal and exciting in her own way. We need all types of dancers to fill the rep and in my opinion she is most welcome.

I love Stravinsky's music, but do not think ORPHEUS is one of his more interesting scores. I think the sets and costumes are ugly and, as with many things that were avant garde at the time, look dated and silly today. I did not see Darci, but Kyra. Nilas in the title role was actually quite poetic, and was one of the few things about the performance that I liked. Balanchine was known to discard fussy costumes & settings along the way and I wonder how this ballet would look in a black & white incarnation?

Then there are dancers like Jennie Somogyi who look tall onstage but when you see her in the street, she looks petite. I guess it's her dancing that is "big"...

Colleen, I have to agree with you that I found ORPHEUS very dull on my first experience and have avoided it ever since. How would James Fayette be as Apollo? Had Robert Tewsley stayed with the company, I think he would have been pretty good.

As of 6:00 PM tonight the casting was not up in the lobby but I come home and here it is on Ballet Talk But stopping by the lobby did have a reward: the new principals photographs have been added to the gallery.

Cast changes within the corps are not listed on programme inserts. Almost every night in the bigger ballets, somebody replaces somebody. It's fun to try to spot the missing persons and figure out who is replacing whom. I didn't see WHO CARES? this week but have seen Ringer in that part a couple of times and I think it suits her very well...and both times, the audience seemed to agree: she was one of the very few dancers in recent years at NYCB to be called out twice after her solo and twice after her pas de deux. Coming out for a bow used to be routine after a solo (provided it was "musically appropriate") and a few times in the past dancers were called out more than once. But over the years, the practice has pretty much stopped. In general, I find enthusiasm both at the opera and the ballet has dropped off considerably in the past decade...show-stopping ovations and multiple curtain calls are not frequent. At the end of the evening, it seems everyone wants to rush out to check their cell-phone messages or grab a cab.

Yes, GeorgeB fan, you are so right about James Fayette...I especially like him in SERENADE where at one point he must catch the various corps girls who come hurtling towards him. He does so with a sort of other-worldly gleam in his eyes. His hands are big, and he is strong and charismatic. While very different from Jock Soto, I see Fayette succeeding Jock in many roles and bringing a different and sort of "all-American" feel as opposed to Jock's exotic look. Albert Evans is also a superb partner, in my estimation.

Bujones for sure! Anyone remember Lupe Serrano? She had a great stretched out jump, as I recall. At NYCB these days we have Ashley Bouder...and the amazing Ben Millepied who really seems to hover in the air.